The two charters granted by King Charles IId to the proprietors of Carolina with the first and last fundamental constitutions of that colony.

COPY OF THE Fundamental Constitutions OF CAROLINA. Agreed on by all the Lords Proprietors, and Signed and Sealed by them, (the Origi∣nal being sent to CAROLINA by Major DANIEL:)

April the Eleventh, 1698.

OUR LATE SOVEREIGN LORD KING CHARLES IId, Having out of his Royal Grace and Bounty, granted unto Us, the Province of CAROLINA, with all the Royalties, Properties, Juris∣dictions and Priviledges of a County Palatine, as large and ample as the County Palatine of Durham, with other great Priviledges; for the bet∣ter Settlement of the Government of the said Place, and establishing the Interest of the Lords Proprietors with Equality, and without Confusion; and that the Government may be made most agreeable to the Monarchy under which we live, and of which this Province is a Part; and that we may avoid erecting a numerous De∣mocracy, We the Lords Proprietors of the Province aforesaid, with the advice and consent of the Landgraves and Cassiques and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, have agreed to this following Form of Government, to be Perpetually

establish'd amongst us, unto which we do oblige our selves, our Heirs and Successors, in the most binding ways that can be devised.

1. THE Proprietor's Court shall consist of the Palatine, and seven Proprietors; wherein nothing shall be acted without the Presence and Consent of the Palatine, and three others of the Lords Proprietors: This Court shall have Power to call and dissolve Parlia∣ments, to pardon all Offences, to make Elections of all Offices in the Proprietor's Disposal, to nominate and appoint Port Towns; and also, shall have Power by their Order, to the Treasurer, to dispose of all publick Treasure, excepting Money granted by the Parliament, and by them directed to some particular publick Use: And also, shall have a Negative upon all Acts, Orders, Votes and Judgments of the Parliament. And shall have all Power granted to the Lords Propri∣etors, by their Patent, from our Sovereign Lord the King, except in such Things as are limited by these Fundamental Constitutions.

2. DURING the Absence of the Palatine and Proprietors from Carolina, the Governour, commissionated by the Proprietors, toge∣ther with their respective Deputies, shall be the Proprietor's Court there, and shall have all the Powers above mentioned, excepting in pardoning Offences, and constituting Port-Towns.

3. IN the Proprietor's Court, the Palatine, and any three of the Proprietors or the Governour, and any three of the Proprietor's De∣putys shall make a Quorum.

4. NO Deputy of any Proprietor shall have any Power, whilst the Deputator is in any Part of Carolina, except the Proprietor (whose Deputy he is) be a Minor.

5. DURING the Minority of any Proprietor, his Guardian shall have Power to constitute and appoint his Deputy.

6. THERE shall be a Parliament, consisting of the Proprietors or their Deputies, by themselves, the Landgraves and Cassiques in the upper House, and the Freeholders out of every County, to be chosen by the Freeholders of the said County, respectively; together with the Citizens and Burgesses, to be elected by the Cities and Borroughs (which shall be hereafter created) in the Lower House.

7. AND since all Power and Dominion is most naturally founded in Property, and that it is reasonable that every Man, who is empow∣ered to dispose of the Property and Estate of others, should have a Property of his own, whereby he is tyed in Interest to the Good and Welfare of that Place and Government, whereby he is entrusted with such Power; it is therefore declared and appointed, That no Person

shall be admitted, or shall continue to sit or vote in Parliament as a Landgrave, who has not actually taken up, and has in his Possession at least, _____ _____ Acres, part of the Land granted him in his Pa∣tent and _____ _____ Slaves, or in the Possession of his Tennants, _____ _____ Acres of Land. And whose real and personal Estate shall not be worth at least, _____ _____ Pounds: Nor as a Cassique to sit or vote in Parlia∣ment, who has not actually taken up, and has in his Possession at least, _____ _____ Acres, Part of the Land granted him in his Patent and _____ _____ Slaves, or in the Possession of his Tenants _____ _____ Acres of Land. And whose real and personal Estate shall not be worth at least, _____ _____ Pounds

8. NO Person shall be admitted, or continue to sit or vote in Par∣liament as a Representative of the Commons of Carolina, who is not possess'd of at least, _____ _____ Acres of Land: And whose real and per∣sonal Estate is not worth _____ _____ Pounds.

9. NO Person shall be capable of giving his Voice for the Election of a Member to serve in Parliament, that is not actually possess'd of _____ _____ Acres of Land, and is a Housholder, and has a Family, and whose real and personal Estate does not amount to _____ _____ Pounds.

10. THE present Number of the Representatives of the Commons shall be _____ _____ who (as the Country shall encrease) shall also pro∣portionably be encreased, if the Commons do so desire, but shall in no future Time be encreased, beyond one hundred.

11. AND pursuant to that just Maxim of Government above mentioned, and for the Preservation of the Ballance of Power, accor∣ding to the Proportion of the Property, it is declared and appointed, That the Number of the Representatives of the People to be sent from any County or Place, shall be more or less, according to the Charges born, and Money paid by each Respective Division of the Country, in the last General Assessment foregoing such Election.

12. THE Landgraves and Cassiques who compose the Upper-House, shall not at any time exceed half the Number of the Commons.

13. THE Landgraves and Cassiques shall be created by the Lords Proprietors Letters Patents, under their Great Seal, by the joynt Election of the Proprietors, or a Quorum of them, which shall be the Hereditary Nobility of the Province of Carolina; and by Righ•• of their Dignity, be Members of the Upper-House of Parliament, each Land∣grave shall have _____ _____ Acres of Land, to be taken up in _____ _____ several Counties and each Cassique _____ _____ Acres of Land to be taken up in _____ _____ several Counties, and the said Honour and Dig∣nity shall descend to the Eldest Son, unless by Deed or Will Devis'd to any other of the Sons, or for want of Sons to the Eldest Daugh∣ter;

unless as aforesaid; and for want of such to the next Heir (unless devised as aforesaid by Deed or Will) to be attested by Three credible Witnesses, whereof one at least to be of the Nobi∣lity) to any other Person.

14. AND to the End, that such an Order of Persons being made Noble, and invested with great Powers and Privileges, whereby to engage them in a more particular Affection towards this Settle∣ment and Country of Carolina, may not fall into Contempt, or be any ways injurious to the Constitution of the Government, It is De∣clared and Appointed that whatsoever Landgrave or Cassique, his Heirs and Successors, shall not be qualified as in Article 7th, and so be excluded from the aforesaid Priviledge of Sitting and Voting in the Upper House, and shall continue defective in the said Qualification for the space of Forty Years successively, such Landgrave or Cas∣sique, his Heirs and Successors shall from thenceforth be for ever utterly Excluded, and his or their Dignity, Honour, Priviledge and Title of Landgrave or Cassique shall cease and be utterly lost, and the Letters Patents of Creation of such Dignity shall be vacated.

15. AND in order to the due Election of Members for the Bien∣nial Parliament, it shall be lawful for the Freeholders of the re∣spective Precinct to meet the first Tuesday in September every Two Years, in the same Town or Place they last met in, to choose Parlia∣ment-Men, and there to choose those Members that are to sit▪ next November following, unless the Proprietors Court shall by sufficient Notice _____ _____ Days before, appoint some other Place for their Meeting.

16. A New Parliament shall be assembled the first Monday of the Month of November every second Year, and shall meet and sit in the Town they last sat in, without any Summons, unless by the Propri∣etors Court in Carolina they be summoned to meet at any other Place, and if there shall be Occasion of a Parliament in these Intervals, it shall be in the power of the Proprietors Court to assemble them in _____ _____ Days Notice, and at such Time and Place, as the Court shall think fit.

17. AT the Opening of every Parliament, the first thing that shall be done, shall be the Reading of these Fundamental Con∣stitutions, which the Palatine and the Proprietors, and the Mem∣bers then present, shall subscribe; Nor shall any Person what∣soever Sit or Vote in the Parliament, till he has in that Session subscrib'd these Fundamental Constitutions, in a Book kept for that purpose, by the Clerk of the Parliament.

18. ANY Act or Order of Parliament that is Ratifyed in Open Parliament, during the same Session, by the Governor and Three more of the Lords Proprietors Deputies, shall be in Force, and continue till the Palatine himself and Three more of the Lords Proprietors themselves signifie their Dissent to any of the said Acts or Orders, under their Hands and Seals. But if Ratified under their Hands and Seals, then to continue according to the time limited in such Act.

19. THE whole Province shall be divided into Counties by the Parliament.

20. NO Proprietor, Landgrave or Cassique, shall hereafter take up a Signory or Barony that shall exceed Four Thousand Acres or thereabouts for a Proprietor or Landgrave; and Two Thousand Acres or thereabouts, for a Cassique in one County.

21. NO Cause, whether Civil or Criminal, of any Freeman, shall be tryed in any Court of Judicature, without a Jury of his Peers.

22. NO Landgrave or Cassique shall be tryed for any Criminal Cause in any but the Chief Justices Court, and that by a Jury of his Peers, unless a sufficient Number of such cannot be legally had, and then to be supplyed by the best and most sufficient Free-holders.

23. IF upon the Decease of the Governor, no Person be appointed by the Lords Proprietors to succeed him, then the Proprietor's Depu∣ties shall meet and choose a Governor, till a new Commission be sent from the Lords Proprietors, under their Hands and Seals.

24. BALLOTTING shall be continued in all Elections of the Parli∣ament, and in all other Cases where it can conveniently be used.

25. NO Man shall be permitted to be a Freeman of Carolina, or to have any Estate or Habitation within it, that does not acknowledge a GOD, and that GOD is publickly and solemnly to be Worshipped.

26. AS the Country comes to be sufficiently planted and distributed into fit Divisions, it shall belong to the Parliament to take care for the Building of Churches, and the publick Maintenance of Divines to be employed in the Exercise of Religion, according to the Church of England, which being the only True and Orthodox, and the Na∣tional Religion of the King's Dominions, is so also of Carolina, and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive publick Maintenance by Grant of Parliament.

27. ANY seven or more Persons agreeing in any Religion, shall constitute a Church or Profession, to which they shall give some Name to distinguish it from others.

28. THE Terms of Admittance and Communion with any Church or Profession, shall be written in a Book, and therein be subscribed by

all the Members of the said Church or Profession, which shall be kept by the publick Register of the Precinct wherein they reside.

29. THE Time of every one's Subscription and Admittance, shall be dated in the said Book of Religious Records.

30. IN the Terms of Communion of every Church or Profession, these following shall be three, without which no Agreement or Assembly of Men upon Pretence of Religion shall be accounted a Church or Profession, within these Rules:

• I. That there is a GOD.
• II. That GOD is publickly to be Worshipped.
• III. That it is lawful, and the Duty of every Man, being thereunto called by those that govern, to bear Witness to Truth, and that every Church or Profession shall in their Terms of Communion set down the external Way whereby they witness a Truth as in the Pre∣sence of God, whether it be by Laying Hands on, or Kissing the Bible, as in the Church of England, or by holding up the Hand, or any sensible way.

31. NO Person above Seventeen Years of Age, shall have any Bene∣fit or Protection of the Law, or be capable of any Place of Profit or Honour, who is not a Member of some Church or Profession, having his Name recorded in some one, and but one Religious Record at once.

32. NO Person of any Church or Profession shall disturb or molest any Religious Assembly.

33. NO Person whatsoever shall speak any thing in their Religious Assembly, irreverently or seditiously of the Government or Gover∣nour, or of State-Matters.

34. ANY Person subscribing the Terms of Communion in the Records of the said Church or Profession before the Precinct Re∣gister, and any Five Members of the said Church or Profession, shall be thereby made a Member of the said Church or Pro∣fession.

35. ANY Person striking out his own Name out of any Reli∣gious Records, or his Name being struck out by any Officer thereunto Authorized by each Church or Profession respectively, shall cease to be a Member of that Church or Profession.

36. NO Man shall use any reproachful, reviling or abusive Language against the Religion of any Church of Profession, that being the certain Way of disturbing the Peace, and of hin∣dering the Conversion of any to the Truth, by engaging them in Quarrels, and Animosities, to the Hatred of the Professors and that Profession, which otherwise they may be brought to assent to.

37. SINCE Charity obliges us to wish well to the Souls of all Men, and Religion ought to alter nothing in any Man's Civil Estate or Right, It shall be lawful for Slaves as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what Church or Profession any of them shall think best, and thereof be as fully Members as any Freeman; but yet no Slave shall hereby be exempted from that Civil Dominion his Master had over him, but be in all other Things in the same State and Condition he was in before.

38. ASSEMBLYS upon what Pretence soever of Religion, not observing and performing the abovesaid Rules, shall not be esteemed as Churches, but Unlawful Meetings, and be punished as other Riots.

39. NO Person whatsoever shall disturb, molest or prosecute another for his Speculative Opinions in Religion, or his way of Worship.

40. EVERY Freeman of Carolina shall have Absolute Power and Authority over his Negro Slave, of what Opinion or Reli∣gion soever.

41. ANY Person at his Admittance into any Office or Place of Trust whatsoever, shall subscribe these Fundamental Constitu∣tions in this Form:

I A. B. do promise to bear Faith and true Alle∣giance to our Soveraign Lord King WILLIAM, and will be true and faithful to the Palatine and Lords Proprietors of Carolina, their Heirs and Successors, and with my utmost Power will defend them, and maintain the Government ac∣cording to this Establishment, in these Funda∣mental Constitutions.

THESE Fundamental Constitutions in Number Forty One, and every Part thereof shall be and remain the Inviolable Form and Rule of Government of Carolina, for Ever. Witness our Hands and Seals, this Eleventh Day of April, 1698.

• BATH PALATINE.
• A. Ashley.
• CRAVEN.
• BATH for the Lord Carterett.
• William Thornburgh for Sir John Colleton.
• Tho. Amy.
• William Thornburgh.

FINIS.